Over the years though India has earned its reputation of being an IT superpower, the irony of the situation is that it has been able to do little to bridge the great digital divide between the IT haves and have-nots. Hard to believe, but this remains the truth. Compare this?the overall teledensity of India is whopping 65% whereas the computer penetration rate stands at around 20% and that too, only in urban India. Amongst the major reasons for this dismal picture in India are lack of affordable computing, continuous availability of power, service and support infrastructure etc.

Surprisingly, while there have been many initiatives to increase the penetration of computers in the country, the education sector seems to have taken front stage in terms of increasing the use of computers in the country.

However, even though there have been many initiatives pertaining to increase the penetration of computers in the sector, there is a long way to go and many state governments and bodies have taken positive steps to take these initiatives ahead.

However, low-cost computing remains the key to increase the penetration of computers in the country and the education sector also seems to have maintained this as the primary criteria for providing computer access to students. While the cost of computing infrastructure largely depends upon the choice of technology, it is also imperative to keep in mind that the technology also takes into account the other detrimental factors such as power consumption and ease of maintenance for successful penetration of computers in the Indian market. However, affordability reigns supreme.

The key to reduce the cost is to use innovative hardware-software combinations and share the machine with several users. Various innovative solutions are available to lower the cost. These include the use of zero and thin clients. Similarly, one can consider use of free open source software. It is essential to realise the quality and power of free software, which is usually faster and uses less memory space as compared to the priced versions.

Today?s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of people only use a fraction of the computer?s capacity. This unused capacity can be tapped so that it can be simultaneously used by many people. Each person connects their own monitor, keyboard and mouse to a hardware device which is then connected to the shared PC. Each student gets a full PC experience. The solution is easy to deploy, rugged, and only uses 1 watt of electricity. The low electricity usage is critical because electricity in India can be expensive and often unreliable.

Put simply, the future of affordable computing lies in doing more with less. The bottom line is to push for technologies that can lower the price, put smart and simple applications into use, and above all, push for a new marketing strategy that can make IT affordable. From a technological point of view, it will be quite a challenge to offer so many systems in one package to the people at an affordable cost.

The story does not end here as well, we have very few IT projects that target basic human needs that can steer sustainable development and narrow the digital divide. On one hand, we need to undertake applicable projects that could directly benefit society as a whole. On the other hand, we should popularise IT-based services so that the number of users of such services increase manifold and the use and access to information becomes widespread.

We at NComputing tap the unused power of computers to create full-fledged computers, thus substantially reducing hardware and maintenance costs by 75%. It is a perfect solution to leverage power of cloud computing as well. Users need a small device to connect the virtual desktop unit to the host computers. NComputing server software and VSpace server provide the most efficient and highest density available on market today, allowing as many as 100 concurrent sessions on a single instance of a given operating system. Our unit uses only 1 watt of electricity compared to 110 watts for a regular PC.

The time seems ripe for both the government and non-governmental sectors to create a movement for affordable computing. We should perhaps also think of an index that can measure the social success of affordable computing. It is high time that rural India became a part of the Indian IT revolution.

The writer is vice-president (Asia Pacific), NComputing